


The Man with Red Eyes

by Rogue of Heart (Akumeoi)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2018-02-10 16:38:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2032155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/pseuds/Rogue%20of%20Heart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the Huntress met the Signless and the Dolorosa and became the Disciple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man with Red Eyes

She had been watching them for two days now – the male troll in the ratty cloak, and the jade-blooded female. They were walking across her territory, and worse, they were hunting, hunting her prey, without her permission.

She would not stand for it. She could tell by the way they were attempting to sneak around that they must be fugitives, but that didn’t mean they had a right to her food or to her land. They would only bring trouble here. She didn’t like them.

At the moment, she was watching them preparing some kind of curious trap, made from her vines and her branches, presumably for some smaller beast, a bird or a squirrel. Well, she would make sure they caught nothing. The huntress’s hackles raised, her green eyes angry, but she didn’t hiss or growl. The intruders must not know she was there.

Now they were covering the trap with some of her leaves, and the female wandered a short distance away, while the male, who obviously though he was the more fit of the two to be a hunter, concealed himself in a nearby bush.

The huntress did have to admit that the male’s cloak concealed him well in the darkness, and that both of them had the luck or the skill to tread lightly at times, but neither of them was as fluid, as sure, or as alert as was the huntress herself.

The one thing that had kept her from killing them already was her curiosity, though they were getting too close to her hive for comfort. She had resolved to stop them before they got there, and now that they had separated themselves for her, the moment to strike would be soon.

The male looked stronger, so she would pick him off first. Perhaps the mere sight of her would deter the female and she would run away on her own, like a hoofbeast filly that had lost its mother.

Dropping to all fours, she slunk around the bush she had been hiding, and crept slowly around the clearing until she reached a large tree beside the bush the man was hiding in. Gracefully and silently, she slithered up the rough bark, and made her way out on an overhanging limb until she was directly above his head.

Letting out an ear-splitting yowl, she leaped down. Landing squarely on top of him, she threw him flat on his back. He cried out in surprise like a kitten that has had its tail stepped on.

When he resisted her she was not surprised, but she was stronger and smarter than him in the ways of the hunt. Holding down his arms and pinning his legs with her knees she hissed viciously, “You are not wanted in this forest.”

She moved forward to rip his throat out, but as she did so she caught sight of his frightened eyes. They weren’t wild and rolling as the eyes of any animal in his position would be, but meek and gentle, apologetic, still fearful, but deeply, deeply old – or maybe wise. And, they were red, like the blood of a beast or the gems she found deep in the earth, rubies, a colour she had never seen in the face of a living being before. She stared.

“Please, don’t cull me because my blood isn’t on the hemospectrum,” he said, his voice trembling, but calmer than she would have expected given that his face was the colour of dirty snow. “I didn’t ask to be what I am.”

Her lips drawn back from her teeth, she said, “What use do I have for your hemospecturm? You’re going to die for what you have taken from me, not for your blood, whatever it might be.”

But somehow now she felt less inclined to kill him, and she did not know why. Those eyes... they spoke to her. They talked of thousands of years spent under the stars, of the brightly-coloured songbirds at dawn which she could not bring herself to hunt, of feeling the warmth of the sun without being burned by it, of being whole.

She shook her head as if she had water in her ears. He would pay for what he had done, red eyes or green eyes or no eyes at all.

“I had no idea I had taken anything from anyone, and I apologize very deeply for anything I might have done without knowing it. Please tell me if there is anything I can do to fix this,” he said, sounding first surprised, and then resolute. The huntress wondered why he didn’t test her and attempt to spring up and flee now that they were talking. If she had been in his position, she would have flipped herself over and run off without another thought.

“This is my land, and the creatures you have been hunting are my prey,” the huntress said fiercely.

“I had no idea that anyone lived this far from the village,” said the red-eyed man.

At that moment the female, who had no doubt heard the commotion from the huntress trying to kill her companion, appeared, out of breath. The huntress had heard her coming, but had paid her no mind; she was not a threat. Now the huntress raised her head and let out an angry hiss, fangs bared, claws pressed against the male’s neck, warning the woman not to approach.

“Mother?” said the man. The word made no sense to the huntress, and she didn’t think it was a name.

“It’s me,” the female replied, her hands clutched in the folds of her skirt.

“Stay back,” the man said. “We’re trespassing on this woman’s territory.”

“And eating my meat,” the huntress reminded him.

The female looked from the angry face of the huntress to the very pale but composed face of the red-eyed man. She seemed startled that the huntress could speak, and the huntress didn’t really know what to make of her. She must be braver than she looked to not run away, but she was also more cowardly than the man, because she had not attacked. Or maybe she just trusted his word too much to disobey it.

“If you let me up, we could talk about how I could repay you somehow,” the man said.

The huntress cocked her head. “Prey that has been caught cannot be returned to life, man with red eyes.”

But in spite of this, she slowly released him, watching and waiting for signs that he would attack her. There were none. She didn’t rise to her feet as he did, but stayed in a defensive crouch, ready to spring forward with claws extended at any moment.

The woman gave a sigh of relief that the huntress had not harmed the man, and she was filled with a strange feeling that she couldn’t identify. These trolls were so different from any of the trolls she had known before, as lovers or as enemies. How could they be so calm and brave, yet so ready to pay for their mistakes? Did they not realise they were living in a world where none other than themselves knew loyalty or love?

“Perhaps I could repay you some other way,” the man said.

The huntress considered this. “You could fill a pail with me. The drones are due in less than a sweep, and my last matesprit was a traveller.”

He blushed. He actually blushed. A grown man had just blushed at the natural ways of the world, at something even the smallest beasts did on a regular basis. He was young, to be sure, but so was she. He exchanged a glance with the woman, who looked just as surprised as he did, though not nearly as embarrassed.

“I’m afraid that I have taken a vow never to fulfil my quadrant destiny of serendipity,” he said. “Are you sure there is nothing else that I can do for you?”

The huntress stared at him, her eyes wide. To never fill a quadrant, even temporarily? What was this madness? The huntress felt as if everything she knew was completely alien. Unbidden, visions of her life as it had been up to this point rose in her mind.

The hunting. The screaming of hoofbeats in pain as she raked her claws down their sides, the blood coating her hands, thick and rich and giving of life. The basic instincts she had followed, her senses overwhelming her with the need to eat, to sleep, to make love, to the point where she was more animal than troll. Yes, there had been other trolls in her woods before this one, but somehow she knew that there would be no more after.

“Man with red eyes,” she said, looking straight at his face. “I want to know why your gaze reflects the morning stars. Show me the things that have made you what you are.”

The purest smile spread across his face, like both moons coming out from behind clouds at once. He walked towards her, and she shrank away, tensing.

He held out his hand.

“My name is Kankri,” he said. “I will show you all these things and more, I promise. Come with me.”

The huntress took his hand and allowed herself to be pulled upright. At the same time, the female walked over and, though clearly still slightly shaken, smiled. Her smile wasn’t bright and big, like Kankri’s, but small and warm, gentle, kind.

“I’m Porrim,” she said. “What is your name?”

“I am called Meulin,” said the disciple.


End file.
